Whose voices count? Chris Minns's politics of control

In February 2025, setting out his antisemitism and places-of-worship package, Chris Minns thanked NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip for his "guidance and support". A year later, defending the policing of protests against Israeli President Isaac Herzog's visit, he called Palestine protest organiser Josh Lees a "professional dissident".^[1][2]

One advocate was credited in Parliament for his guidance on legislation. The other was dismissed for persisting. That asymmetry is the core of Minns's politics of control. Some voices are given the authority of the Premier's office, and others are treated as a problem to be managed. Twice, the courts found that restrictions built on that approach went beyond constitutional limits.

A real threat, and laws that went too far

The government had real obligations. In his February 2025 statement, Minns described antisemitic graffiti, an arson attack on a childcare centre and families frightened for their children.^[1] On 14 December 2025, a terrorist attack on a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach killed 15 people and injured 40.^[3] Protection was urgent. The question is whether the restrictions were tied to the threat.

Twice, they were not. In October 2025, in Lees, the Supreme Court accepted that protecting worshippers was a legitimate aim. It struck down the original move-on power because the power was not confined to conduct affecting access to worship. The government's December replacement tightened that link, which shows a narrower rule was available all along.^[4][5]

Five days after Bondi, the government announced a declaration scheme that blocked the ordinary routes for authorising assemblies in designated areas.^[6] In April 2026, in Jarrett, the Court of Appeal found the challenged provisions imposed an unjustified burden on political communication. They burdened gatherings regardless of their purpose or their effect on social cohesion.^[3]

Not every measure failed: a challenge to the major-event declaration for Herzog's visit was dismissed.^[7] But the pattern is clear. Faced with fear, the government reached for breadth, and the courts had to supply the limits.

When organisers become the problem

Minns's rhetoric supplied the public rationale. On 23 December 2025, days after the attack, SBS reported him calling Lees's response to a proposed chant ban "almost troll-like". He also said some protesters were "unleashing forces that they can't control".^[8] Nothing in those remarks showed any link between the protest movement and the terrorist attack.

Expression can intimidate Jewish Australians without causing violence, and the government was entitled to point to rising tensions and strain on police.^[6] But a restriction must still be connected to the risk it addresses, and that connection is what Jarrett found missing. Once an organiser is cast as a source of danger, his demand drops out of view and the debate becomes how to contain him. The burden should run the other way. The government must justify the restriction; lawful protesters should not have to disprove a general suspicion.

The same reflex applied inside Labor. In May 2024, Minns removed Anthony D'Adam from his parliamentary secretary roles after D'Adam criticised the policing of a Palestine demonstration and refused to withdraw his comments.^[9] Minns was later reported telling state MPs who advocated for Palestinians to focus on state issues or seek federal office.^[10] A Premier chooses his team. His choice here was to defend the police and remove the critic.

It applied again after Herzog's visit. When footage of force at Town Hall circulated, Minns called the policing "proportionate and responsible" and Lees a "professional dissident", while denying he gave operational instructions.^[2][11] The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission's investigation is ongoing, with no misconduct findings.^[12] The legal verdict on police conduct can wait. The political verdict on a Premier who publicly defended it need not.

Organising protest again and again is a democratic contribution. Persistence should earn an answer to the argument, not become a reason to discount the person making it.

Not only Palestine

This is not a Palestine-only policy. Important parts of the NSW protest framework predate Minns, and his government's restrictions have also reached climate and rail protesters.^[13][14] When police sought to prohibit the August 2025 Harbour Bridge march, the Supreme Court refused.^[15] Minns governs by a broad law-and-order reflex.

That makes the question of standing sharper, not weaker. The powers apply to everyone. What differs is whose account of safety the Premier publicly credits, and whose dissent he treats as the problem.

Who has the Premier's ear

Ossip's input is on the record. Minns acknowledged it in Parliament for the February 2025 package, though not which clauses it shaped.^[1] Ossip is a community safety advocate with a defined political position. In parliamentary evidence, he linked Jewish safety to Israeli sovereignty, while accepting that the Israeli government could be criticised.^[16]

Steven Lowy appears in the Premier's diaries more often than any other individual in our comparison. He has had seven meetings between November 2023 and May 2026, three of them described as community relations and security (July, September and November 2025).^{[17][18][19][20][21][22]} He is listed as a board member and trustee of Keren Hayesod–UIA and a member of the Jewish Agency's Executive and Board of Governors.^[23]

One of those meetings, on 6 November 2025, came three weeks after the Lees judgment and 12 days before the replacement places-of-worship bill was introduced.^[21][24] In a June 2026 royal commission statement, Lowy argued that authorities had failed to recognise an escalation of antisemitism through protest towards violence. That statement postdates the assembly scheme and does not mention these powers.^[25]

Across 729 disclosed diary entries from 7 October 2023 to 14 June 2026, we identified 61 community and Israel-related meetings. Of these, 39 were with Israeli representatives, pro-Israel advocates, or Jewish communal, religious and Holocaust-related counterparts. The other 22 were with Palestinian, Muslim, interfaith or civic-cohesion counterparts.^[26] The Premier has met APAN, the Lebanese Muslim Association and the Australian National Imams Council.^{[17][18][20][27]} Access was not exclusive, but on this broad grouping it was uneven.

The diaries record who was in the room, not what was said. That is why Minns should answer three questions:

1. What was raised at his three meetings with Lowy on community relations and security?

2. Did protest or assembly powers come up on 6 November 2025?

3. What representations, in those meetings or outside them, informed the assembly scheme and the Herzog-visit measures?

Whose voices count

Consultation is legitimate, including with people who hold strong views about Israel. Communities facing threats deserve protection and a hearing. But a Premier who publicly credits some advocates, gives them regular access, and disparages persistent Palestine protest owes an account of how he weighs the two. People challenging Israeli policy deserve an answer to their arguments. They should not be made to carry responsibility for violence they have not been shown to cause.

Minns should release the advice, alternatives and reasons behind his restrictions, and explain why he gave this rhetoric the weight of his office. A democracy cannot make being agreeable to the Premier the price of being heard.